I have been thinking about the election happening in Cambridge on the 5th of May.
Something is rotten in the state of local politics.
I have been thinking about how difficult it is for people who aren't from traditional backgrounds from entering the politics arena to do so without falling fowl of some rule or regulation or just saying something poorly judged. You can have a whole twitter storm etc. Descend on you and depending on intersectionality and your background you may well not be able to stand tall and shout back at someone attacking you.
This relates to the twitter mob and it means I have to look at my own behaviour when I have been in it. The mob mentality I'd strong, it's simple and morally just and a group of righteous people who think like you do. Anyone who has a differing opinion or is ignorant of what is so obvious to those inside the mob are wholly wrong and you feel justified in your picking at them. It's like bullies in the playground, it's the animal that takes joy in bringing down those weaker in the pack. It's the sexist, racist, homophobe mentality, it's the KKK or indeed the black panthers, it's any group that creates an us and them.
We are all people after all and surely the way to change behaviour we don't like is to persuade and inform but not to chastise. In the past few weeks I've seen a fair amount of in-fighting, insults and slurs flying around.
I (will attempt to) kindly say this to others who may have been involved. We are all people, we have intersectional biases and challenges and experiences.
It's difficult enough to get into politics if you're a cis white man, let alone anyone else, but when we attack those who might misjudge their actions or get something wrong we lose what we are fighting for. We leave the concept of a united Cambridge at the door.
Indeed this is meant to be what we are trying to get away from as a society, braying pmqs and insulting fellow candidates.
Having questioned my own actions in twitter storms. I would really like to say that I'm very sorry for jumping to conclusions and judging myself just to challenge you, I'm sorry if I have embarrassed you as a person, while I may have disagreed vehemently with what you were saying I should not have acted in such a knee jerk way. I think as a society we are better than that, let's work towards that as exploratory partners, not attack dogs with a scent.
This is just a brain fart from my head as it comes rather than planned in any way or even properly proof-read. I'm hoping I can get away with it.
I wrote something similar after I was called a tosser by the Deputy Leader of Cambridge City Council, I said:
ReplyDelete"I think what happened here was related to party politics. Labour supporters, and others jumping in, appear to have turned into a mob prepared to attack an outsider. I suspect as I am not a party member, but am taking a personal interest in how our society is being run, I am viewed as “different” by the mob and so in their eyes fair-game for attack."
http://www.rtaylor.co.uk/carinaoreilly-attacks.html
Personally I am constantly attacked for what I do - trying to engage with how we run Cambridge. I try to publicise these attacks in an effort to bring them to wider attention and hopefully prompt a culture change making them unacceptable.